Today in Tech: How your Facebook ‘Likes’ become ads

From his first months in office, President Obamasecretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.

The Internet search giant unveiled on its Chinese search site this week a new mechanism that identifies political and other sensitive terms that are censored by Chinese authorities. For example, when users search for keywords like “carrot”—which contains the character for Chinese President Hu Jintao’s surname—a yellow dropdown message says: “We’ve observed that searching for ‘hu’ in mainland China may temporarily break your connection to Google. This interruption is outside Google’s control.”

Amazon is one of many companies that pay Facebook to generate these automated ads when a user clicks to “like” their brands or references them in some other way. Facebook users agree to participate in the ads halfway through the site’s 4,000-word terms of service, which they consent to when they sign up. With heightened pressure to step up profits and live up to the promise of its gigantic public offering, Facebook is increasingly banking on this approach to generate more ad revenue. The company said it does not break down how much revenue comes from such ads. Its early stock market performance — down 22 percent from its offering price — is likely to increase the urgency.

In a blog post explaining the decision, Microsoft Chief Privacy Officer Brendon Lynch acknowledges that online advertising is important to the Internet economy, and that consumers receive value in the form of a more relevant, personalized Web experience. In the end, though, Lynch states, “We believe that consumers should have more control over how information about their online behavior is tracked, shared and used.”

Microsoft Corp. is so eager to have a panoply of applications for the next version of itsWindows operating system that it has lined up design firms, recruited interns and sent engineers on an around-the-world road show to help developers get them built.